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[Defensive kobra]

dwarves seem to rely mostly of booze to hydrate themselves, something that strangely can be made out of nothing but plump helmets. So other than it being nessesary for an medical ward, will it matter much if my embark site is an desert that lacks water completely, if i plan on retiring this fort as soon as possible regardless and so will not need any hospitals or prisoners?

[kaijyuu]

Yeah pretty much. Also caverns almost always have water if you really need it.

[PatrikLundell]

As mentioned, water is necessary for medical care, but it's possible to micro manage yourself around it by releasing thirsty dorfs from the hospital and then readmit them (you'll still get a higher infection rate, etc.).

Apart from that, water is necessary for obsidianization, which is used for securing caverns (with water along edges), obsidian farming, and magma sea obsidianization for a couple of purposes (I'm not sure if pumps can be used instead of obsidianization, but suspect you'll lose dorfs occasionally if you try that route).

Water is also needed for power production if your latitude doesn't allow for wind power (and even when it does, the power provided is small, in particular after transfer losses, both in the high wind case and especially the low wind one).

Thus, it's possible to run a long term fortress without any water anywhere, and so a short term fortress would probably just have it as an inconvenience.

[vjek]

For challenge forts, I have created worlds and found embarks with no aquifer, no plants, no seeds, nothing in the caverns, evaporation, instant freezing, or varying mixes and matches of those.
You can get along perfectly fine with zero booze.  Now that aquifers are low-flow, if your embark has just a few tiles of aquifer, you can have a zero rain, dry cavern embark and survive just fine, even without seeds, trading or crops for booze.  Heck, even on some embarks, you can make it so all you can make is mead from honey, if you want. 

Cavern water is also a reasonable source, even in shallow embarks with a single cavern, if you wanted to embark somewhere without an aquifer and no river on the surface.
While water isn't necessary, strictly speaking, provided there is no need for medical care, looking at it from the opposite perspective, if you have any water at all, a fort can survive without booze.  You can even make artificial waterfalls, and they will have a bath if you give them soap.  Both of those give some nice positive thoughts.

[TheyreAllGullyDorfs]

What about children? Wont all your children die of thirst without a source of water to drink?

[kaijyuu]

They drink booze like anyone else.